Biography:Sweet was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and she is faculty emerita, having taught Humanistic Studies, Creative Writing, and First Nations Studies for the University of Wisconsin―Green Bay. She also taught a travel seminar in the Yucatán Peninsula and Guatemala where she did fieldwork among the Mayan peoples. She has won several awards for her poetry including the Diane Decorah Award, the Posner Award, the Woman of the Year Award from the Wisconsin Women's Council and the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award for Poetry.

Sweet has performed in theater and film productions (both a full-length feature and various documentaries), and has given over 100 readings in North and Central America, Canada and Europe. In 1998, her collection Songs for Discharming won both the Wisconsin Posner Award for Poetry, and the Diane Deborah Award, given by the North American Indigenous Writers Circle of the Americas. She is Anishinaabe (White Earth). In 2004, Governor James Doyle appointed Sweet as Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate (4-year term); the second laureate for the state.